Hold me Here
by openwindows
Summary: We'd be all right. Because Harry and Harry's safety was all that mattered. And he was safe.


The End.

I suppose it's rather odd to start a story with The End, but that's what it felt like in that moment. I never thought it would come to this.

I suppose that's not true. I'd been longing and dreaming about this day for weeks, months, years. And yet, now that it is here, it seems terribly unreal.

Even worse, the fact that this was the end was somehow far more terrifying then running from deatheaters. Because suddenly our, my, purpose was gone. This regime which we had spent the past seven years of our lives dedicating our lives to destroying, was _gone_. Everything we had studied, read, learnt, all our career plans had been focused on death, destruction, wiping him out.

Gone.

So what were we to do with ourselves now?

The End. As I whispered those fatal words, Harry and my eyes met. Empty. Why, when we should be filled with such joy, ecstatic jubilation, did our eyes look so empty? Oh there was relief, blessed relief, but beyond the relief... nothing. Just emptiness.

Our lives had only just begun, and yet I felt so old. So very old. Sitting in St. Mungos hospital, four and a half hours after the end, Harry beside me as we clutched each others hands.

I felt so old.

As the nurses clucked around us like hens, and doctors with grim faces preformed test after test, it felt like my life had run its course, I had outrun my purpose, and here I sat in a nursing home, with the clucking of nurse-hens, waiting for death to release me.

How could I only be seventeen, and feel so old?

Only Harry's hand kept me anchored, kept my soul from leaving, kept my lungs breathing, my heart beating. And somehow I knew that the grip of my hand did the same for him. Oh we were weak, malnourished, dazed, and near half-unconscious, but we held onto each other with a grip that the doctors couldn't break.

They'd already tried.

They had wanted to put us in different rooms. We were too tired to even protest, but our grip on each other said it all. They kept us together without asking questions. Ron was with the Weasley's, mourning the loss of Fred.

I was too tired even to mourn.

I remembered dancing with Harry. In the tent, to the radio.

It was the only time I ever saw him dance like no one was watching. I suppose one of the moments when he genuinely felt that no one was watching. Oh certainly we were on the run, stuck in a tent, exhausted, starved, terrified and hunted. But in that moment, no one knew where we were, and in that moment no eyes were on us, no judging teachers, no worried adults, no bloodthirsty death-eaters, no scavenging journalists. And in that one moment we were able to be happy.

And then that moment ended.

Too soon. If only I had been able to wallow in it for a while. But back then every moment seemed to escape through our hands like sand, and stealing moments of happiness seemed like trying to catch and hold waves back from the sea. At times it even felt like a betrayal to hold those joyful moments, because there was too much to do, too many to save, too much that depended on us.

Too many moments in this war that ended too soon. Too many lives that ended to early.

Some moments could not end quickly enough. Blood and pain... such excruciating pain.

And what now? The end has come. Clutching Harry's hand I meet his green eyes, searching his. I am the one with the plan. Why am I coming up empty now? Why have I not thought of the end? Why have I not included what comes after the end in my many, many plans?

"I'm so tired Harry."

The first words I speak since Voldemort's death. They're hardly awe-inspiring. They certainly don't contain a plan. I hate how small I sound. How small and weak and – childish.

I sound like a lost child.

It's so long since I've been able to afford sounding like a lost child. Does anyone care if I sound like a lost child now? Can I lose myself now to a childhood I gave up when I was eleven?

Old. Childish. A child forced to become old? I can't think any more. It's all blurred. What became of the greatest witch of her age?

"I'm so tired Harry."

"I know Mione. I know."

I'm not sure how, we are both so tired and could scarcely move, but we manoeuvre in the unpleasant, unyielding hospital chairs until we hold each other, ignoring the protests of the doctors and the nurse-hens. We are a weaving of limbs, an embrace of familiar arms, tender hands, gentle fingers.

"I don't know what we're doing next Harry." I confess, a whisper.

Speaking out loud had become too much an effort.

"We'll be all right Mione." He whispered back, his eyes closed, as if that to was too much of an effort even to keep them open.

I close my own eyes, and decided it wasn't worth the effort to open them again. I knew I was safe. I knew Harry was safe. I knew we'd be safe tomorrow as well. And that- that was all that mattered.

"I love you Harry." I whisper, my words becoming slurred and heavy as I allow the seductively warm fingers of sleep to drag me under.

"I love you too Mione." I hear his whisper in my ear.

And with that I believe him. We'd be all right. Because Harry and Harry's safety was all that mattered. And he was safe.

Here.

With me.

In the end.


End file.
